Will New 'Lab Rat' Ads Stop Teens from Smoking Pot?

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A new ad campaign in Colorado that likens people who smoke
marijuana to "lab rats" is intended to steer teens away from
using pot, but some communication experts say the campaign is
unlikely to be effective.

The campaign — which was launched by the state of Colorado last
week, and cost $2 million — emphasizes that the effects of the
drug on teen brains remain unclear, and features the slogan
"Don't be a lab rat." The ad campaign involves several human-size
lab-rat cages, as well as a website, and ads that will air on
TV and in movie theaters.

"Scientists from Duke to Cambridge have uncovered a laundry list
of troubling side effects [of marijuana]. Schizophrenia.
Permanent IQ loss. Stunted brain growth," the ad campaign's
website reads. "Still, some people question this research,
claiming the studies need to go deeper. Look further. But who
will be their guinea pigs?"

The campaign "acknowledges that more research is necessary, but
it also poses the question of whether or not teens should risk
the potential negative effects of using marijuana," Dr. Larry
Wolk, executive director and chief medical officer at the
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said in a
statement.

However, some health communication experts doubt whether the ads
will prevent teens from using marijuana.

"I think that it is a campaign with a message that is too complex
and too abstract in order to really get through to kids
effectively," said Timothy Edgar, director of the graduate health
communication program at Emerson College in Boston.

Part of the problem is that the campaign mentions potential
negative effects
of marijuana, but then says that not everyone agrees with the
findings. "Right away, what they're doing is, they're giving the
audience an out," Edgar told Live Science. Anybody who doesn't
want to believe the message will stop paying attention at that
point, he said. "It's easy to turn away from the message," Edgar
said.

The campaign is also too abstract, Edgar said, because it
requires people to think into the future, and hypothesize about
what it would be like to be part of a study that found negative
effects of marijuana. "That's a lot of thinking to do," Edgar
said.

A more effective message would be one that gives people a simple
behavior that they can do, Edgar said. To prevent teen marijuana
use, that message might focus on skills people can use to avoid
using marijuana if it's offered to them, he said.

Some news outlets reported that at least one of the human-size
rat cages had been vandalized, which is also a problem because it
takes away from the public health message, Edgar said.
CBS Denver reported that someone had changed a statement on
one of the cages, so that instead of "negative effects," it read
"positive effects".

"You never want to be off-message," Edgar said. "When they're
covering the fact that people have vandalized the cages, that
gets you off-message."